Phobias and Philias

**Be warned.  This story is graphic, and extremely gross. Read at your own risk, and preferably not while eating. ** 

We all have little pet peeves, right? Things that we just Can Not.  I have a friend who can't stand butterflies, one who's afraid of sea water.  There's all the usual stuff that freaks people out; heights and elevators and spiders and lions/tigers/bears.  Me?  I don't mind any of that stuff.  I'm not afraid of the dark.  I like flying and falling and public speaking.  I used to have a pet tarantula, for goodness sake.  His name was Terry!  
But, I have a thing about bathrooms. Even clean bathrooms kind of ick me out, and I can't stand dirty ones.  I Can Not.  In times of stress or chaos, the rest of my house might temporarily fall apart, but I scrub the bathrooms every week like it's a religion, and in my family you know that the Good Lord help you if you get fingerprints or toothpaste spittle on my mirrors.  Uh uh. 
Filthy bathrooms, especially public ones, give me some serious heebie-jeebies.  I mean, ick people.  Just eew.  Do you have anything that freaks you out like that? If you do, keep it in mind.  I'm telling you this so that you can understand the gravity, people, the serious seriousness, of what happened to me last week.
I took our two latest Bananas to visit their siblings, and when we left there was a lot of sadness.  They have been through a lot recently, and I really felt that they needed a familiar, comforting transitional place before taking them back to my house.  For these kids, that place is one they are accustomed to visiting frequently, but one my family does not go to.  So, though it wasn't my cup of tea, I took them to McDonalds.
I am not a McDonalds patron.  So maybe they are not all grimy and smelly, but this one was.  Nevertheless, the extreme joy of the Bananas convinced me to stay.  I ordered "For Here" so they could work off any extra anxiety in the "play place".  This, Peanuts, was not a wise decision.
Because I was already a little grossed out by the way my shoes stuck to the floor, and the slick oily finger smears shining in streaks up and down the faded yellow slide.  And then, 3-year-old Banana had to potty.  This is not a child who can hold it.  So in we went.
I'm not sure if she wasn't feeling well or if this is normal for her, but I tell you I stood in that nasty stall with the baby on my hip for- believe I timed this on my cell phone, Peanuts- over half an hour.  Half an hour in my most unfavorite place on earth.  While she pooed.  She kicked her clothes onto the floor.  She played with the toilet seat.  I am trying to be rational and pick my battles, and calmly ask her if she's ok, and is she done.  And now, is she done.  ......now?
She is singing and chatting and having a grand old time.  I am trying to breathe and remember how important it is to practice patience, even when I want to run screaming into a bathtub full of hand sanitizer.
Then the baby, who has a cold, sneezed.
"Bless you", I said, still keeping my eye on Three.  Then I felt a wiggle and heard a schlurrrmph from Baby, and looked to see that she had blown a thick, neon-green snot rocket, and smeared it with the back of her arm, ALL OVER her face.  She looked up.  Grinned at me.  And blew out her diaper.
Ok.  So three is still doing her business, and I step out of the stall, just long enough to wash Baby's face and arms in the scummy sink basin.  Before handling the diaper issue, I peek back in to check on Three in the stall.  She is leaning forward.  She is up to her elbows in the murky toilet water, splashing, singing, and wiping the stuff all up and down her front side.   Like paint.
 I did not scream.  People. I have seen broken bones sticking through skin, I have seen open heart surgery, I have held a piece of skull over an open brain and not blinked, but for this- can I tell you how proud I am of myself that I did not scream?! 
I didn't do it.  I took a deep breath.  A deep, stink-filled breath.  I spent the next 6 minutes exactly trying to get Three to please finish her business and to convince her to- no! no, no! Don't touch the- wait! Stop! Lets keep our hands on the seat. ON the seat, please, on the seat!
She looked at me like I was nuts. "But whyyyyy? I like to splashies!"
In the end, I had to bathe them both in the McDonalds sink as best I could.  And then go back out there.  To the play place.  And watch them finish eating.
We survived.  Somehow.  We got home and people, we all got baths and then the bath got a bath.  It might go down as one of the most appalling experiences of my life so far.  But I faced a fear and lived to tell the tale (aren't you all so lucky I did).
And later that night, tucking Banana into bed, she cried and shrieked and refused, and then jumped into my arms and held me so tight and hugged me for a long, long time.  I rocked her until her rigid body relaxed, I tucked her in, arms still around my neck, and she whispered, "I don't want to go home.  Can I stay here?  I want stay here with you. Can I stay tomorrow?"  
I remembered that I wasn't the only one facing fears that day.
I thought about what a gift it was, to be trusted by a child who had no reason whatever not to expect the worst of me.  How rarely in life we are given the benefit of the doubt like that.  I put her to sleep, knowing that she would wake in the night, as she does every night, screaming in terror.  And that I would go to her and, as if granted the magical superpower to keep demons at bay, be able to soothe her back to sleep with just two calm words and a hand on her back.  Amazing.
I guess foster care is a dirty job. But somebody's got to do it.  Lucky it should be me.